I don't see how that does anything except force logic to the server and guarantee page-by-page update and view semantics. At least some large percentage of the code for some of these "modern" web apps is on my computer: that means a lot; and anything we can do to discourage code running in the cloud with data stored in the cloud--which absolutely implies giving complex turing complete control over local behavior and expansive state--is a fundamental win for users of the World Wide Web.
> I don't see how that does anything except force logic to the server and guarantee page-by-page update and view semantics.
Which keeps the delivered document a document, and not an application.
> At least some large percentage of the code for some of these "modern" web apps is on my computer: that means a lot; and anything we can do to discourage code running in the cloud with data stored in the cloud--which absolutely implies giving complex turing complete control over local behavior and expansive state--is a fundamental win for users of the World Wide Web.
I consider it much better that only explicitly-requested actions (clicking a "submit" button, or a link, for example[1]) trigger submission of data and execution on a server than to let javascript trigger the same. Control over behavior and data is better retained, especially for lay users, if it's impossible for an ordinary web page to send every mouse movement and keystroke to a server—something that's in fact done, all the time. Retaining that control is well worth pushing web "app" logic to the server.
Programs that need local execution would just have to be delivered as... a local program, not a web page. Losing that distinction cost the average user control and safety when they're in their browser, and fundamentally changed what the web is. Some of us much preferred what the web used to be, not because we hate progress, but because progress that destroys something that was itself valuable kinda sucks. "Web apps" should have had some other delivery channel, if they had to exist—and clearly there's a demand for better cross-platform GUI application delivery. Making browsers serve that purpose has made the web fat, opaque, and untrustworthy.
[1 EDIT] and in fact I'd rather restrict submission of new data, that the server didn't already have, to form elements the appearance of which cannot be modified at all, like a "submit" button. No JS submit-form-or-add-querystring-data-to-URL-on-link-click shenanigans. On my ideal web links would be safe to click, always, with only form submit buttons carrying any risk at all (and even that far less than now, if, say, JS isn't permitted to add to or modify form data in a POSTable form, which is another restriction JS would have on my ideal Web)
